


One Way Or Another

by Purpleyin



Series: Arrowverse fanworks [68]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Minor/background Westallen, Savitar redemption, Season 4 Rewrite, Slow Burn, diverges during season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purpleyin/pseuds/Purpleyin
Summary: AU rewriting end of S3 and S4. Diverging at 3x18. Frost doesn't emerge as expected so Savitar takes fate into his own hands only to be surprised."You want me on your side, fine. This is how I help."After finding out his true identity, Caitlin Snow is willing to make a deal with their apparent devil, Savitar. It sets off a chain of events subtly different to how things were supposed to go, or how they were in the timeline he has lived before.
Relationships: Savitar/Caitlin Snow
Series: Arrowverse fanworks [68]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1518059
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	1. until the end

**Author's Note:**

> Some important notes for this fic:
> 
> 1) There is no update schedule so if that bothers you you should probably wait until it's complete but expect that to be quite some time. Ideally, I'd post a chapter every one or two weeks but I am not in a position to promise that. Rest assured this fic is pretty thoroughly planned out - I've been chatting to shyesplease about it since May 2018! - so I know a lot about where it's going, have a chapter plan and a number of key scenes are already written. I just have to put in the hard graft of filling in the other scenes. Hopefully having the encouragement of feedback from posting will help with motivation there. :)
> 
> 2) The mature rating isn't relevant to most of the fic but it is generally going to have fairly dark themes and whump of several sorts so most of it is more like Teen rated, slightly darker than the show I'd say. There will also be a few key moments of violence during it, as well as a sex scene near the end of the fic though I don't expect that to be explicit.
> 
> 3) Things will not be hunkydory for a lot the time. Savitar doesn't play well with others, not even once he gets to truly trying to because his methods are very different to what Team Flash expects. There will be a lot of emotional conflict going on at times and occasionally physical conflict. I do promise cute moments too, as the road for the ship starts to smooth out, but that won't be for a while. It's a slow burn for sure. 
> 
> 4) I originally planned this out after watching S3 and for that reason Frost isn't a separate persona here like she is in canon these days. Some canon elements I plan to keep but I am sticking to Frost as more of an extension of Caitlin that came from her bottling up her emotions, her darker side.
> 
> 5) Savitar and Caitlin are the main focus but it's kinda ensemble in places and will also deal with Savitar's relationships with the other characters too over time, like Iris. I'm aiming for a modified canon style, so do expect background Barry/Iris. 
> 
> There's several people I need to thank - firstly, massive thanks to [shyesplease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shyesplease/pseuds/shyesplease) for her help talking through the plot and betareading this chapter. Also thanks to [thestarkswillendure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarkswillendure/pseuds/thestarkswillendure) and [Ballycastle_Bat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ballycastle_Bat/pseuds/Ballycastle_Bat) for encouragement. Lastly, big thanks to the vidder anatomyst for making awesome Savitar/Caitlin vids, it was [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd_dnO5tnO4&list=PLNx2nZ5SlEcYV_02UAFpmwBmNoplCV9KW&index=6) that inspired the idea for the fic.

Song for Chapter 1 - "One Way Or Another" by Until the Ribbon Breaks

* * *

**Chapter 1: until the end**

* * *

Caitlin sits up in bed and tries to find something, anything, to take her mind off what is currently happening. She's not meant to get up and back to work following the surgical procedure she had less than 24 hours ago, she knows that. It's exactly what she would tell her patients, for those without superspeed healing at least. The problem is, it's harder advice to follow, particularly when her thoughts are with her usual patient – Barry.

Despite his declaration when he decided to go to the future that he'd return to the moment after he'd left, he hasn't. She knows time travel is tricky. Coming back to an exact moment might be harder than he'd made out. He's out there years ahead of them, trying to find out anything he can to give them an advantage over Savitar, to stay ahead of his enemy. Barry simply couldn't be dissuaded from going by any of them, too intent to stay ahead of Savitar by whatever means necessary.

Savitar knows all about them, and they've barely scraped the surface of what effect he's had on their timeline, like changes Julian's suffered. They don't know the first thing about him apart from the legend, the claims of godhood, and the blame he places at Barry's feet. She isn't going to pretend she isn't worried about Barry being in that unknown future, possibly without _anyone_ on his side, but the unknown is what's held them back in this fight. If Iris does die, what will the future be like? Not to mention, Caitlin is scared of what her future holds.

It feels selfish, but she's still terrified she's going to turn into Killer Frost. As it gets closer and closer to May 23rd, Caitlin feels it gnawing away at her – when is it going to happen? She wants to say she doesn't believe it will. She wants to believe what Barry and Iris say -and they say it so much more convincingly than Cisco, who has seen with his own vision who she could become – but it feels somehow inevitable. Like nothing they do has really changed anything. Her fear says Iris will die and she will be partly responsible. Even before she was medicated for her pain, which caused a rumbling nausea, she routinely felt sick to her stomach at the possibility.

What if Barry is taking so long because he's stuck? No, she can't sit here. She can't just wait for bad news. Or for lack of bad news, because they'd never know what had happened to him if he doesn't come back. Not unless Wally or Jesse or Jay got involved... She has to do something to stop her mind from running rampant with what-ifs. The medbay got turned over during her treatment, and Cisco and Julian only mostly set it to rights. If she could just slide out of bed onto the visitor's chair, she might be able to gently shuffle closer to the cabinet and drawers to sort the items there without disturbing her wound too significantly...

And just as she leverages herself up on her arms to push up further, there's a fluttering of the papers she can spy in her view of the Cortex's main desk. She can just about make out Barry and Cisco having words. Without her. She squelches down the feeling of being left out, relief he's okay covering over that minor annoyance. From their body language as they walk into view, it must be good news. They both enter the room with smiles on their faces – Barry's wide with hope and Cisco's more satisfied. They must have something good to work with. Cisco's smile drops at spying her poised to get out of bed, switching to bemused annoyance once he sees her step one of attempting an escape from the bed again.

“For Merlin's sake,” he says throwing his hands up and rolling his eyes at her before he looks towards Barry for support. “If the last day has taught me anything, it's that doctors make the worst patients. I'm gonna remind you of that repeatedly next time you hassle me for not following doctor's orders. If it's good enough for the master, it's good enough for the padawan.”

“I don't think it works like that, Cisco,” she says fondly, knowing he only has her best interests at heart. He's making her follow her own instructions after all. “This is a do as I say, not as I do kinda situation I think you'll find.”

“Excuses, excuses. You will be reminded. You owe me. This is like my own personal get out of medbay free card.”

She throws Cisco a look, not as stern as it could be perhaps, intended to imply he should know that will in no way be true - there's no getting out of medbay if you _need_ it. There's definitely going to be a future battle to be had over this, probably next time he wants to wave away the toll his powers sometimes take on his brain.

For all the bluster, it's easy to tell Cisco is overcompensating with the nonchalance he's showing today, still concerned about her nearly dying when she threw a blood clot in the night. She still isn't happy with Julian's suggested solution to that situation, there will be more words had with him at some point, but no harm was done in the end. Cisco hit the panic button and Barry came to the rescue, quick thinking to phase the blood clot out of her artery. Right now, she's just grateful she'll get to have words with Julian. Or anyone. She swallows hard at the thought, sobered by it. But they have other matters at hand to deal with.

“So what did you find out, Barry? Did you find out who Savitar is?”

“No,” Barry says shaking his head, a dip in his mood at the admission of his failure, “But I did get a tip about who helps put him away. He _can_ be stopped. Dr. Tracy Brand helps create the Speedforce prison. All we need to do is find her a few years earlier than my future counterpart did and put Savitar away now, before he can hurt anyone.”

“That's great.”

“I know. I already told Iris and Joe before I came back here, they're looking up Dr. Brand as we speak. I took Savitar down in the future, we can do it again. Before. Whatever. Point is, he isn't gonna win.”

Cisco isn't really paying attention at this point, he's looking at her chart, going over the patient checklist attached that she made for this kind of situation. She hadn't imagined herself being the patient, but it was designed for when she wasn't around. Since she designed it, she knows what's next.

“Can you stomach real food yet?”

“Sorry, the pain meds are still making me nauseous.”

“Then you know what time it is - jello time,” Cisco says with glee. He seems to enjoy it more than her, but then again he does like lime jellos, which is the only flavor they're left with most of the time given Barry's appetite for every other flavor and his frequent rate of injury. She makes a face as Cisco exits with a spring in his step.

Barry lumbers around the bed, looking stiff, and she wonders what injuries he sustained in the future he's not revealing so as to not bother her. Nothing too awful probably, yet it bugs her he would keep it from her. Based on his expression, there's something else bothering him too. He has a vaguely guilty look, the way his mouth tenses and he can't quite meet her eyes as he sits down in the chair beside her bed.

“You know, last night, I was so worried about doing it wrong,” he says, indicating to her torso, ”with phasing organic matter out of organic matter-”

“Can't say I've been called that before specifically, but don't worry, I don't take offense,” she teases, hating how the mood shifts at the memory of the blood clot she threw unexpectedly.

“I... sorry. I couldn't think of it any other way. I was worried we were gonna lose you. I was trying to keep a clear head, just think of it like any other problem.”

“Like a scientist?”

“Yeah.”

“I understand, believe me I do. I've been where you were standing so many times. Trying to just breathe, to _think_ , problem-shoot one of my best friends hurting right in front of me.”

Barry flushes a little, rubbing the back of his neck at the reminder, looking sheepish about getting hurt so much. Hopefully Barry realizes she doesn't mean anything by it except to try to put him at ease over their now shared experience.

“I know full well it's not easy. But you came through,” she continues, grateful he's come close enough she can reach out to touch his arm. “Even though you hadn't done it before, I knew you could. You saved me. You all saved me yesterday. You, Julian, Iris, Cisco. I wouldn't be here without you all looking out for me.”

Barry stills, leaning forward with his arms bridged together resting on his knees. He lets out a deep sigh and she sees then how tense he is, how he's no less on edge about what happened than Cisco has been all day.

“I was so worried we were gonna lose you.”

“I know, you said.” She can't help but reach out to touch his arm again and his eyes snap to her, but there's something off there with how he's looking at her.

“What is it?”

Barry shifts in his seat and she senses he's holding back something – something he knows from the future surely. With her future held in so fine a balance between her powers and her fractured identity, she needs to know, practically more than anyone.

“What? Are you worried you'll change the future? I thought we wanted to do that.”

She tries to tease a little, lighten his mood along with hers. But her fear filters through anyhow, and so she decides soon enough to drop the pretense, her voice raw as she asks, “What did you see, Barry?”

He gapes at her briefly, hesitation evident, but he doesn't deny seeing something to trouble him. Closing his mouth, lips set in a hard line that is worrying, the silence looms in the room and she thinks he won't tell her any more. Her stomach plummets at the possibility of yet another secret to box them in their places, how they so often end up alone with their burdens. Finally, he takes a deep breath and speaks.

“In the future... it came true, you became Killer Frost. You sided with Savitar.”

The rush of the words, once he was past the first hurdle of her fate confirmed, makes it seems like he needs to say it, and there's the puff of Barry's astonishment there too as he expresses this strange statement. She doesn't think he can quite believe it and she wishes she could tell him Killer Frost wouldn't.

She doesn't understand it, so how can she refute it when this is an incomplete picture, when they don't know who Savitar is and what he could offer Killer Frost... She feels like there is more he's holding back, but she doesn't know if she wants to know now. That alone is enough to fuel her nightmares for days along with her near-miss. It makes her itch to ask Cisco to vibe her future again, even as she knows no good can come of it; it didn't last time.

“I'm trying to tell myself it won't happen. That future isn't our future, not anymore. I changed that,” Barry says, growing agitated as he tries to justify his half-hearted optimism. This year has taken its toll on them; it's become so much harder to bounce back from each blow that sometimes it seems like she's not the only one who feels a shadow of her former self.

“But you're still worried, aren't you?”

He looks back at her with sad puppy dog eyes and she forgets about her own worry momentarily as she sees Barry take the weight of everything on his shoulders like he is prone to. This time there's nothing she can think to say that is going to make it better. She can't promise to him their fears won't become reality however much she wants to.

“I thought we'd saved you, but it isn't over yet, is it?” Barry asks but it's clearly a question he doesn't need an answer to, he already knows it's true. They're nowhere near done with the hard part, with changing anyone's fate.

The reason she's far from where they expect her to be stems from her reticence to talk about the struggle she's been facing. Denial had been infinitely easier. Only Julian, abrasive but astute, had dared question her and he hadn't wanted to rock the boat too much so even he hadn't asked exactly what was needed to properly deal with the situation. She'd wanted to spare Barry and Cisco and Iris from worrying more about her problems. No one would have wanted to hear what she ought to have been telling them, that her the abilities weren't out of mind the way they might have hoped but instead slumbering just underneath her skin in a fitful sleep.

“Whatever Frost is, she's a part of me. The dampening helps but she's never gone. I can always feel it there.” _Like a threat,_ she thinks, but she doesn't admit that to him. They all need hope now and she doesn't want to overstress her struggle, even as she confesses it is still there, not defeated like he'd thought it was.

“I'm okay though,” she adds.

Barry looks to her seriously, a determination in his face. She worries about the cost of what he must be intent to do, what it will take away from everything else he needs to do, stretching him too thin.

“We're gonna try harder, to save you both. It has to be possible.”

It's meant as a reassurance, and she smiles and nods, but it isn't as reassuring as it should be. Of course Barry believes it's possible. He's prone to believing in the improbable, where others only see impossibility. In their line of work, impossible isn't what it used to be, but she's much more worried at the improbability.

 _Can_ she be saved? If they save Iris and she hasn't turned into Killer Frost by the end of that fateful day, will that mean she's truly safe or simply deferred, a postponement of her fate? Is it inevitable?

Barry doesn't seem to pick up on her doubt. She's gotten fairly good at hiding her feelings this year, so maybe that shouldn't be surprising, nor disappointing – she doesn't _want_ to worry him further.

“I think this would be where I'd hug you usually. Is that a good idea with you...” he asks, motioning to her wound.

She scrunches her face up in response as she quickly contemplates the pros and cons but sides on a cautious approach, a little sad to deny a hug. “Not really. High five's are out too, Cisco already asked.”

He sidles closer to give her a gentle side hug she can't return. It's nice. It's something meaningful, that he tries. To reassure her, to comfort her. For now, at least, she has her friends. She hasn't pushed them away like she'd been trying to for so long since she'd first found out about her powers. Maybe it can be okay somehow.

Barry jumps up at a vibration from his pocket, a text message from either Iris or Joe, “Oh, we got a hit on Tracy. I need to -”

“Go. The quicker you find her, the sooner we can all rest easy.”

She's left alone again with her thoughts in the medbay, wondering what is taking Cisco so long. Her suspicions are confirmed as he walks in not ten seconds later, that he'd been leaving her and Barry to themselves for a talk.

“What?” he asks as he comes in, lays down her spoon and pot on the table he swings around in front of her. Caitlin fixes Cisco with a look that she knows gets results.

Cisco more or less crumbles under her scrutiny but does a little one-shoulder shrug, deflecting it as much as he can.

“He mentioned he wanted to tell you something. About the future.”

Cisco doesn't say anymore, but she knows he's seen the future too – can see glimpses further than he's looked so far, if he so chose - he must know what Barry meant to talk to her about and that itself is a chilling thought. She digs into the jello, distracted enough to mow it down without much hesitation. She might've been hungrier than she was expecting.

“What have you done to the real Caitlin Snow?”

Cisco's stares at her, then at his own pot. “Do you want this too?” he adds, quick to accommodate her possible appetite returned. At least he makes a better doctor than patient. She accepts it a tad bashfully but eager for more food all the same, no matter the flavor.

“If you didn't have a big ol' wound to prove you're the same Cait, I might think you'd been doppelgangered. Though, this still doesn't rule out an invasion of the body snatchers scenario, especially considering who we're...”

Cisco trails off there, because considering nefarious schemes Savitar might do to them is a little too close to home to joke about, even for him.

It's been almost nice having Cisco looking over her today, if she could ignore the boredom that came with being bed-bound. The nervous banter as he tried to keep everything light wasn't ideal but it made a change from the way he'd often looked at her before, the wariness inspired by the future she's supposedly destined to have. Sometimes it seems ridiculous to her and other times she sees it too, with an uncanny clarity to what she could be.

Ever since her injury, there'd been the small voice in her head saying she could use her powers to heal it. She could be up and about and _useful_ to the team in a matter of seconds. The temptation to use her powers is very real. What has kept her from doing so is the memory of how Cisco looked at her when he found out about their predestined fight. Also how Julian had looked at in that interrogation room, in the warehouse, when she'd done so before and risked losing herself to the bitterness. Julian had since gotten over her metapower induced faux pas. He'd seen past it – she still isn't sure if he should. He may have more or less forgiven and forgotten but she can't. She has to hold onto that fear, to stop herself from giving in.

“I actually think I need more food,” she says, apologetic. “I could order some myself?”

Her none too subtle eyeing up of her tablet on the other side of the medbay produces a sigh from her friend. Cisco had already caught her angling for her tablet earlier and 'scheming', as he put it, to get others visiting her to give it to her. No work while ill was the rule of the medbay and he was being stricter about it than she expected.

“And you'll put the tablet down the second you've finished ordering?”

She nods earnestly, and Cisco clearly isn't fooled for a second, but he hands it over anyway.

“I'll believe that when I see it..”

True to her promise, she orders Chinese, bringing up their favorites and remembering last minute to delete Barry's ¾ of the order they usually get since he's busy. But she does quickly check her email once it's done. The reply to Mercury Labs will only take a minute, two tops, except she needs to open a file to confirm some results, simply to look up a line or two, nothing serious...

“ **Cait** _ **lin**_! Don't think I wouldn't notice the updated timestamps,” Cisco's voice booms from the other room.

Cisco appears, exasperated, and looking more tired than she'd realized. “You're such a bad patient.”

He's thoughtful for a moment before he asks “Would you work if you were at home?”

“Possibly not?” she says, neither confirming or denying it. It's hard to say what she can keep to when work is the subject and she tends towards being a workaholic. “But enough about me, you mister, need to sleep,” she admonishes.

“I don't see anyone else here who can look after you,” Cisco points out, yawning right after. “Could you go home? Would that be such a bad idea?”

She takes a minute to consider it, more for his benefit than hers. If he insists on looking after her, they _could_ do it at her house. There's more entertainment there at least.

“I've survived the first 24 hours fine. Chances are good I'm going to be okay. It _would_ be nice to get into my own clothes and bed.”

Cisco and her agree to a plan where he drives her home in her car so it's there for her to use when she's better and so he can babysit her at her place. The plan includes taking a monitor to hook her up to and alert him of any problems, which won't be comfiest, but considerably comfier than staying in the medbay. It seems a monitor is the only way he will be placated, his concerns soothed by the promise of concrete data to back him up. That way he can sleep in her guest bed, and if anything bad arises, he'll wake up and panic button Barry to her, much like the night before. She tries not to dwell too much on that.

Cisco insists on getting her into the basic push wheelchair. Not Wells' one - no one liked using that anymore after they associated it not only with Eobard but with Barry's broken back and Zoom. Plus, they weren't entirely sure it didn't have more secrets than the power source they'd discovered, no matter how many times Cisco went over it with a fine-toothed comb.

They get down to the parking garage and Cisco's car with minimal fuss once she stops protesting the wheelchair. Cisco insists that she stay seated as he loads the car with the monitor, so that he can help her into her seat once he's done.

“How do you think I'll get about at my place if I can't get out of a wheelchair on my own?” she tries to point out, but Cisco is having none of it. Her protests only trigger another round of complaining about how she's an awful patient and him threatening to not listen to her next time he's one to give her a taste of her own medicine or lack thereof.

He's unloading the bags he'd slung across the handles of the wheelchair when he swears, realizing he left her handbag downstairs, probably in the medbay somewhere. Cisco goes to fetch the bag, grumbling about car keys being necessary and how he should install high tech more convenient locks. He's also insisting as he walks away that she stay seated and not try anything on her own without him about. She's inclined to agree if only because the car is still locked.

So she concedes, sitting there bored as Cisco walks away and she hears the ding of the elevator arriving not long after that. With her phone in her hand, she's grateful she can watch cat videos or something else distracting. Though maybe she shouldn't watch anything that will make her laugh, or else she might pull her stitches. She's contemplating an appropriate search term when she gets this unnerved feeling cropping up as soon as the scrape of the elevator moving down to the lower levels is apparent.

Suddenly she's aware of Cisco's absence. There's a sense of deja vu making her panic and she doesn't know why until she recollects the reason – the same feeling from her run-in with Ronnie and Stein down here – the feeling of being watched. That and something else. The air has changed, it tastes different, smells different, _charged_..... Like a-

And then she's yanked from the wheelchair. Everything is a blur until she finds herself strung up, hands in heavy chains from the ceiling in a gloomy room, the cold metal of her restraints biting into her flesh. Her breath stops, choked at the abrupt pain that spreads out from her abdomen. The position stretches her uncomfortably, pulling at her stitches. She can feel the warm ooze of blood from her wound already and she's scared.

A spotlight is upon her, shining blindingly. Her only remedy letting her hair fall over her eyes to shield them. It does no good to help her see what's happening, there is only darkness surrounding her position. The deep black of the shadows that could be hiding anything she thinks, but then she spies an ethereal blue glow in her peripheral vision. The initially blurry lights advance on her and she knows from the horribly familiar pattern exactly who it is.

Savitar.

She feels the edge of cold creeping in with the fear that rises inside her and realizes she is not wearing her necklace.


	2. no home for the heartless

Song for Chapter 2 - "Beautiful Crime" by Tamer

* * *

**Chapter 2: no home for the heartless**

* * *

Strung up by the chains, stretching her out uncomfortably, her wound is throbbing. Without her necklace, the temptation to use her powers to heal herself is very real. Her breath is already coming in cold puffs she can see in the air, and she can't tell if it's the frigid location or if she's slipped that far already. As she hears the clunking metal of Savitar walking ironically slowly up to her position, it's a struggle to keep herself reined in. To not curse him out and aggravate the situation further with it.

If she used her powers she could freeze the chains, shatter them to the floor and turn her focus on him. She's iced him before at the docks and the cold streak inside her says, _do it._ It would be _so_ satisfying to get the upper hand after he's subjected her to this, and after the reign of terror he's subjected them all to lately. But a larger part of Caitlin is horrified at the idea, and not willing to risk losing herself in her powers unless she's in real danger. He could have killed her in a heartbeat but he didn't – she's here for a reason and she intends to find out why.

Knowing she's not in immediate danger from Savitar does little to quell her panic about how difficult it is trying not to change into her frosty persona. The pain in her side could go away in an instant if she just... What stops her is an equally ice-cold realization – is this how it happens? The start of what Barry saw in the future. Each time she feels the encroaching cold calling to her, her wound hurts less. It's hard to fight when staying herself means suffering; _like she always does_ that spiteful inner voice points out.

Savitar's suit finally steps into view, the metal glinting strangely in the light, highlighting its otherworldliness. Must've been impressive to his followers, she thinks wryly, but it isn't to her, not with what she's seen these last few action-packed years. He'll have to try harder than that if he wants to cow her into submission for whatever purpose he's taken her. Her anger towards him once again flares up icy rage she can't really afford to incite further. Each time she gives in to such a thought it widens the gap between what she needs and what she wants, and that inner voice wrestling to let loose gets a greater hold on her body. Like the other version of her has a foot in the door mentally, constantly trying to get in, while threatening to burst open the door to much worse. Caitlin has to count slowly to ten, resisting saying anything as he makes his dramatic entrance.

A few steps further forward into the circle of visibility, standing inside the beam of light so his suit is in full view, Savitar unexpectedly kneels. She's confused enough at his action, only just cottoning onto it being practical as the suit opens up like a butterfly at the back. That's when she realizes the man behind this monstrous hulk is stepping out – the answer they've all been waiting for is right in front of her, only seconds away, and her heart is racing. At least the discomfiting anticipation is a distraction from the cold and the pain for a moment.

A figure clad in nondescript black side-steps into view, standing tall but head bowed down and nearly black hair falling into his face. She notes the scars there and rationally she thinks this means it's no one she knows. Yet her brain already knows something is wrong about this, something she can't put into words as fast as what she is processing visually.

As he lifts his head to stare into her eyes, she stops breathing for several seconds before she chokes out a strangled response.

“ _Barry_?!”

The look on his face is defiant. He wants her to know who he is. He wants recognition.

“No,” he says firmly.

Despite his confidence when he speaks, she can't compute who he is if he isn't Barry. How any version of Barry would do what he's done.

“Then who are you?” she asks with more bite than intended.

“Savitar. Your salvation.”

She almost laughs at his bluster but catches herself at the last second, settling for a neutral statement, dangling a hook out for details. Racking her brains fruitlessly for an explanation isn't going to help her make sense of it, but more information might, she hopes. The scathing side of her can't help but think about how villains tend to like to talk themselves up. _Let him_.

“I don't understand.”

He circles closer, spouting out what he must think she needs to hear.

“You're meant for greater things than S.T.A.R. Labs. Forget about them. They don't deserve you.”

Caitlin opts for saying nothing in response. Instead, she tries to steady her breathing. She tries, simply, to stay in control, but it's getting harder with each passing second. Somehow this silence is worse than any words she might have said, surprisingly aggravating Savitar.

“Barry Allen _failed_ you, like he failed so many others. He'd sacrifice anything, anyone. You, _me._ He made me to die, a time remnant, a _disposable_ hero, and yet here I am -” He spreads his arms wide and grins like a maniac, chilling to see on Barry's face. “- stronger than him; _I'll_ be the last one standing.”

Again, she says nothing. Silence seems to be the more dangerous tactic though. He sneers at her lack of reaction and rounds upon her with an intent she can't read. He has a hand tracing down her side that she doesn't know what to think of, until she realizes he's zoning in on her wound – is he going to resort to torturing her? His touch is barely there but she fears what might come next.

She struggles against the chains, writhing away from him, but that itself causes a shear of pain to go with the action. Her already aggravated wound is so sensitive it doesn't take much to have her sucking in air, her willpower rapidly running out in the face of yet more pain. There's a flash of blue as her vision changes, so close to losing the scant amount of control that remains. Staring up at her, his mouth parts, and his eyes widen in anticipation of something more.

Whatever she expected from him - perhaps to press the issue, and her wound, further - it doesn't come and he drops his hand abruptly at the sight of her grimacing, her control regained.

“Still so loyal,” he remarks tersely, retreating from her form so she can't make out his expression as he does. Despite his retreat from her physically, the encounter has inadvertently done enough damage that she's struggling harder than ever to hold onto who she is. It strikes her as odd how she can't tell this time if he's annoyed or impressed at her holding out. If he were Barry, she might have said he sounded proud somewhere in the mix, but all she can be certain of is the bitterness to his voice, not so unlike the voice in her own head that she fears.

He circles around her slowly at a distance, thoughtful and silent, his dark eyes otherwise unreadable. The action makes her feel like prey, but that voice of hers reminds her she isn't, _he only thinks he has the upper hand, boy is he wrong_. Even so, he hones in on her in a split-second, making her heart skip a beat at the sudden movement. Once more he gets right up in her face, and she's scared he means to press her injury, do what he'd decided against before, but he doesn't. He holds there, looking for something in her eyes she's just as scared he might find. He's close enough that the iciness of her breath encrusts his skin with crystals but he doesn't flinch, taking the damage like it's nothing. The sight of that is an unpleasant confirmation she's less in control than she hoped. It must hurt as the ice encroaches across his cheeks – at least on the cheek that isn't scarred - but he smiles broadly, something not quite like joy on his lips with that, before he vibrates it off.

 _Show off_ , a part of her thinks, before she thinks harder and understands he's pleased. That's the plan of his, isn't it? Either version works for him. The enticement to not hurt anymore, or the anger, showing him who he thinks she really is. There's a great irony that Barry pulled her back from her coldness and Savitar wants her to succumb to it. Anything other than her remaining in control means he gets what he wants. _Screw that, screw destiny._ She won't give him the satisfaction. She _has_ to fight it.

He steps back again, giving her room as the ice under her feet spreads incrementally across the barren concrete, but still watches her with an eagle-eyed interest. Caitlin starts to count out the periodic table in her head, anything to distract herself from the pain, or the cold that would be so much easier to endure.

By the time she's gotten to Tellurium, she can see by his twitching fingers, a tell of sorts, that he clearly expects a different reaction. He hasn't gotten what he wants and she suspects his patience is failing him. She'd grin at that if it didn't feel like giving in to the bitterness she shouldn't encourage.

She can see the exact moment he switches to worried, though she doubts he's worried for her, only for things not going as expected. Savitar's brow furrows in a very familiar way, though his mouth twists in irritation and any other signs of his nerves are similarly masked with anger. There's a pause as he thinks over his phrasing, deciding eventually on an attempt to bait her.

“You don't have to suffer for them anymore. _Embrace it_ , become Killer Frost,” he says, his voice rising and straining at the last almost plea. It's said with a passion that has her believe he truly means it, that he wants to save her. The difference of opinion is what he thinks she needs saving from; not herself, but from 'them'. From everyone he counts as other and against the side he's warring on with her, his would-be ally.

She wonders if that was what he'd told himself about it, that he was helping them both. A justification for all his machinations. Is it possible he doesn't want to be cruel? A plain old matter of survival, a choice as cold and as calculated as he wishes she would give in to. Does he think this is necessary? Like everything else he's done and claimed as destiny when he spoke via Julian. Horrible things but he was so assured of them, that Barry and the team were in the wrong. What happened to him to flip from the man she knew to this? Perhaps that's the scariest part of looking at him, the knowledge of how Barry, of all people, could be driven to that.

There's a wide streak of sympathy in her at the thought of what he must've endured to come to this, and yet, a larger part of her scoffs at the possible excuses. No matter how hard she tries to hold on to what makes her uniquely Caitlin Snow, the frostiness is still winning today.

“And play into your nefarious plans, no thanks. I think I'll take a hard pass at that.” Already her voice is affected, coming out corrupted by the chill that is seeping into her bones. Her wound hurts less as she feeds the anger towards him; if she could just stick to this level of cold could she heal it enough to undo the damage and get some relief...

“I'm The Future Flash, and you, _Killer_ _Frost-_ ” he trots out her name with equal admiration and amusement, knowing how it cuts at her, “-are destined to join me. Carving out our place in the world, not waiting to be given scraps by those who rejected us. Why fight fate? Do you think you're so special you get to be the exception?“

“Says the so-called god of speed. Doesn't seem so godlike to be told what to do.”

Letting such emotionally charged words work free is possibly a mistake on her part, but she has the satisfaction that it breaks through his calm demeanor too, bringing out the same loss of control in him.

“It's me or Iris!” he practically shouts back, a raw admission ripped from him that he seems to regret instantly. Caitlin can see his pain flash up for a second, evident in the crinkle around his eyes as they widen, seemingly imploring her to understand, but he's quick to avert his eyes, nostrils flaring instead and not meeting her gaze anymore. There's a slither of humanity revealed with it and an uncertainty about him all of a sudden. Half of her wants to understand that. The other half – the cool and calculated half he awakened – sees this weakness of his, and wants to exploit it.

“What if it didn't have to be?”

“It's a time loop. There's **no** escaping fate. If Iris doesn't die, I become a paradox, get wiped out _just like I was intended_.” His eyes narrow dangerously and he looks up again, a challenge in his stare, as if he's daring her to comment on that tidbit. His bitterness has come back full force, acting as a shield. “I'm not going to let that happen.”

“But what if we could find a way around it?”

Savitar laughs then, a mangled sound compared to what it should be, and she takes that to mean he's bemused at her optimism. But the thing is, it isn't actually optimism she's aiming for – that isn't what the cold side of her is relying on. She has no idea what is or isn't possible. Right now she's not sure she cares about the impossibility, just the way it will sound to him, the way Caitlin Snow can sell it to him, that they would try. When she meets his stare and doesn't blink, acting like she takes it fully seriously, he raises his eyebrows. He still huffs in the face of her resolve, rolling his eyes.

“My pain can never be avoided.”

“But this Barry's can, everyone else's can, and _maybe_ we can find a place for you to be. Whatever loss you've endured it can get better.”

She still has no idea _how_ it can be, but as she says it she feels some warmth flushing back into her face. She finds that she does want that, to do something, avoid the supposed fate set for them all; this isn't just an empty promise to escape his clutches. The part of her that still has faith clings to the possibility; it's as much a lifeline to her as it could be to him potentially. Holding out a faint trace of hope for the idea that no one needs to suffer any more than they have already.

“Better? Like you?” he taunts. “All those faithful friends behind you, and still, look at what your pain turns you into.”

“ _My_ pain hasn't taken me over yet!” she whips back, spitefully reminding him. Except her point isn't made well when expressing that anger isn't helping her case - her voice reverberates with the cold. She feels stronger, the throbbing in her side is subsiding at an alarming rate. Can she really hold out long enough to not become Frost in front of him? How much time before taking the easy path is too seductive exactly like he hopes?

In this state, she can't help but goad him. “Guess I'm just stronger than you.” It's more Frost talking than her, but she can see her friend in there from the set of his jaw. She just hopes he can see his friend in her too, the one who has cared for him time after time, and who would bet her life on Barry Allen's ability to overcome anything fate throws at him. She can see him grinding his teeth subtly, they're at an impasse.

Maybe he wants to believe in her, to believe in that impossibility like he used to. And yet his own temptation is that he wants to believe in the inevitable, in fate, so that he is blameless and the victim – that's his easier path. So she tries to think of how that's of use to her... She rationalizes that it doesn't matter which motivation she has, she knows what she has to do. Turn the tables on him.

Why does it matter to him that she joins him? Does he really need her powers or is it more about having her on his side, as she was in the future Barry had seen? She knows so little about this version of Barry and what he's gone through. But she does know he'd claimed to have gone mad as he blamed Barry for everything. That he'd been imprisoned. Presumably alone. Barry never did alone well. He had a tendency to turn things in on himself when left to his thoughts, only this time he must blame himself in an entirely new way.

“You don't have to be alone anymore. That's what you wanted, right?”

Savitar tilts his head and crosses his arms, acting unimpressed with her guess.

“And I've gotten what I wanted, more or less,” he says with a smirk. “What exactly do you think you're gonna do? You're the one in chains here.”

“You want me on your side, fine. This is how I help. We fix your problem, no one dies.”

“And what, Team Flash takes me back with open arms?”

“I could convince them to give you a chance.”

“Really?” Scorn drips off that one word, not resisting his urge to mock her claim. He can't let himself believe her offer. She doesn't know if she believes it herself right now either. The cold is bit by bit pushing out her empathy, leaving only the theoretical as something she recognizes she would say, if she were more herself.

“Whatever happened in the future, it doesn't have to happen again.”

“It's _already_ happened for me,” he says harshly, another burst of pain expressed at her verbal misstep. Though maybe it's not a problem if she can make use of it, soothe the wounds he has that she shouldn't be able to see. He's like a distressed animal she has to approach carefully. She sticks to that sense of purpose, see it through.

“Your future, it can be better than this. You don't have to be the villain.”

He smirks again then, self-assured as he answers, “Oh, _I'm_ not the villain.“

“You're a killer!“ she says vindictively, finding it suddenly hard to hold onto the compassion that had cropped up with her proposed solution. Her outburst wipes the smirk off his face.

“Says Killer Frost.”

“I'm _not_ her. I won't be her, I'd rather die.”

He pauses at her brash statement and a spike of fear goes through her. Because it looks like he's considering something and for that moment before he answers she has no idea _what_.

“So you're offering this for me, out of the kindness of your heart, hmm?” His tone is mocking skepticism but it says something that he's even asking this question of her, no longer outright rebuffing her offer. “Maybe you just don't want to face your own future.”

“Does it matter why I want to help?”

“Not really,” is what he answers with, but with how he avoids looking at her again she feels like that's a lie. Like he doesn't want to appear too interested. The thought she might have gotten through to him sends a flare of hope inside her, further warmth stirring in her core. She latches onto that tightly, using it for a last surge to convince him of the possibility of changing both their fates.

“Let me help you,” she all but whispers, the gentleness she manages to get out jarring with her icy inflection.

His eyes flick back to her, scrutinizing her more thoroughly. This whole time she keeps going back to the thought that he's constantly searching her face for something, even if what he's looking for there may have changed with her offer.

“If I let you go, you'll **make** them save me?” His incredulity is clear with his phrasing but he's not dismissing it now which is a step forward. She doesn't know if he does believe her or not, but she hopes he can see her offer is genuine.

“I can't _make_ them do anything, but I'll make them understand **why** they should. They'll do what's right.”

She expects a sardonic comment in return - something decrying her sense of right and wrong perhaps - but none is forthcoming. Instead, he's eerily stationary for a long moment, eyes boring into her as he stands with his head tilted and teeth clenched. As he holds that look on her, it sends a different kind of chill down her spine.

“What have you got to lose? Let me go and I'll try my best. Cross my heart and hope to die, if you don't do it first. Promise.” She can feel the ice behind her eyes as she says so, desperately hoping it hasn't come out with her sharply said statement. That her words aren't undermined by a glimmer of hope for his original plan and how close to falling into her own dark hole she is.

She gets the impression of a thoughtful stare, and is starting to wonder how much longer he'll need to think it over and decide one way or the other, but she's just as soon eased down to the floor. Automatically she brings her fingers to rub at her chafed, but now unchained, wrists to work feeling back into them. The sensation of the necklace resting on her chest settles into her in the same moment, a sudden flood of relief that she has control back. Even if it does also bring the pain back in her side. She lifts her shirt and dressing up to see her wound is somewhat healed, almost losing control for a while at least having that perk.

Adrenaline pumps through her making her feel panicked but the feeling is subsiding as she recognizes the nightmare is more or less over. Except for Savitar's general existence, the thought he could try it all over again. Though he's proven possible to rationalize with for the time being – or at least she assumes so by being set free. She got through to him, to whatever remains of her friend.

Unfortunately, as she peers at her surroundings, she has no idea where she is. She looks to Savitar, feeling more powerless in her freedom than she had been strung up. She doesn't like to ask to be taken back home, or to S.T.A.R. Labs, or anywhere she knows. The man in question is hovering on the edges of the shadows, half-silhouetted and quiet, but made more visible on one side by the outline of one of his hands fidgeting in his pocket. She isn't sure what to make of the fact it's his scarred side he's effectively hiding.

He says nothing more but eyes her up fleetingly, almost hesitantly, before he takes a step forward, hand finally pulled free of his pocket. In the space between one breath and her next, her phone is in her hand, and Savitar and his imposing suit are gone.

The spotlight is off too, leaving her standing in a gloomy room with the low glow of fluorescent lamps overhanging the workbenches at the sides. It's no longer as if she's in a horror movie. Just in a decrepit warehouse, alone. She turns her phone back on with shaking hands and presses the speed dial emergency button for a distress call.

Barry is there in less than a second, fingers pressing to her pulse points to check she's fine physically, and quickly flashing around, scoping the location out, albeit as an afterthought. If Savitar had wanted to, he could have taken Barry by surprise, used that concern for her to his advantage. It certainly says something he doesn't, solidifying her promise as solemn – she has to do right by him, she has to try to fix their future.

Barry is back at her side soon after he's checked the place out, with rushed questions asking what happened, wanting answers where she can only give some. Others she isn't ready to provide. She needs to catch her breath first, reorient the axis of her world with the weight of what she's learned.

She stares at Barry for what she knows is probably too long to be taken as normal, reassuring herself he's still the same man she's always known. Under his cowl, his brow will be furrowed, worried what ordeal she's been through and that detail is oddly reassuring right now. She wishes she didn't have to burst his bubble with the reality of how far both of them could fall under the right - or rather, the wrong - circumstances.

“Cait, what's going on?” he asks, a hand still comfortingly at her side, helping balance her unsteady body. His eyes are searching hers for some sign of what's happened, but it's difficult for her to face him. Her hands are still shaking and she has to wrap them around herself in an attempt to make it stop.

“Take me to S.T.A.R. Labs, I'll explain everything there.”

Barry says nothing - just giving a dip of his head to indicate his understanding and acceptance, his trust in her - and then he's scooping her up into an embrace to speed them out of the warehouse. She's in his arms like so many times before, safe. Except there's a small part of her that doesn't feel so safe with him anymore, and she hates that. The lurching sensation sends her body into yet another panic physically, a too soon reminder of being taken there, and she knows it will be a while before she stops shaking.

At the other end, the Cortex is full of people and the ideas boards rolled out, hastily scribbled over in what's mostly Cisco's handwriting. The room erupts into noise at her return – relieved cheers, well wishes, and queries that come too fast to deal with for her shocked brain.

Caitlin tries to filter it out and focuses only on the immediate task of sitting down as Barry leads her to a chair by the board. The action stirs in her an unpleasant memory of him doing the same when she escaped from Zoom's grasp, and she has to swallow down a sick feeling at how much more difficult it's going to be to tell them about this development. 'Jay's' deception and betrayal is going to pale in comparison to the truth about Savitar.

“ _What happened?_ ”

“ _Who took you?_ ”

“ _Did you escape?_ ”

“ _Did they let you go?_ ”

All perfectly reasonable questions, but Caitlin stutters non-answers, watching the cloud of confusion growing with every failure to explain. The burden of being the one to tell the team the truth is overwhelming.

Finally, she admits the most basic of answers, the who. “Savitar-”

Cisco curses and rants profusely in the background, and HR chatters in response about some theory they'd been spinning about her abduction, but she doesn't really hear any of it. Barry tenses up at the mention, and Iris stiffens too, arms coming up to wrap around herself unconsciously in a protective stance.

“I made a deal, to help him-”

Barry's hands at his sides, that previously weren't quite making fists, ball up at her admission. Caitlin doesn't know if that outrage is at Savitar taking her or at the idea they'd help him. Either way, it's hard to watch his anger threatening to spill over. Barry starts pacing as he gets out a few aborted attempts at questioning the why and the what of this, impatient for the answers but trying not to pressure her.

“What? Cait, why would we...? I don't-” He shakes his head and brings his hands up to the back of his neck, holding them there tight for several seconds in frustration.

Iris is watching Barry carefully, ready to reach out and ground him, which she does as Barry paces back her way. Immediately, Barry stills at Iris's touch and throws her a grateful look, hand reaching to entwine briefly for a reassuring moment. It makes something in Caitlin sit ill at ease for the reminder Savitar is a Barry with so much more anger and absolutely no tether like that, other than Frost that he'd been reaching for in his own way.

She considers asking for a minute alone with Barry to tell him, but the others deserve to know too. There's no way to sugarcoat this.

“I...I know...who he is,” she splutters out around uneven breaths, choking up at the thought of how Barry will blame himself even though this isn't him. Not yet, and not if she has anything to do with it.

Everyone looks to her, but Caitlin's eyes are on Barry alone as she wills herself to confess what she knows. He tenses at her admission; his anger and restless energy are back now, and barely contained as he waits with bated breath for information he can act on – it reminds her uncomfortably of Savitar. A few tears escape her eyes, that she wipes away quickly with the back of her hand. Barry's lips part, all he utters is a simple “No...” but she can tell he has an inkling of why it's so hard for her to come out and say it.

“I'm sorry, Barry,” she says in lieu of a denial she can't give him.

Barry's face crumples in anguish as she all but confirms his fear; a lesser echo of the short-lived expression on Savitar's face earlier, when he let his true feelings show about being pushed into his dire situation. Watching Barry absorb the new information, and take on a defeated slump to his shoulders, Caitlin's heart breaks for him.

Safe in the Cortex, palm reassuringly holding her necklace, she feels that anguish for Savitar too now, in a way she hadn't been able to fully process when she'd been strung up in Savitar's lair. He'd done terrible things, threatened her, but he was still Barry underneath it all – she can't give up on him either.

“He's me, isn't he?” Barry asks, still looking in her direction but carefully not looking her in the eye as he does so. She can only nod in return, more tears falling.

The others are understandably confused, so many more questions are raised by this, but she can't look at them as she explains properly.

“Savitar is Barry, another Barry at any rate. A time remnant. One who lost everyone and everything that mattered to him, but that's his future, not yours,” Caitlin says resolutely as she glances back up at Barry. “And we're not going to let that happen, right? We'll help him, just like I promised him we would.”

There's a hardness to Barry as he nods almost imperceptibly to her. She can tell by how tightly wound his posture is that he's still brimming with anger – some of which she reckons is directed inwards, at how any version of him in any timeline could let this happen. But Barry's anger is contained, channeled into a righteousness she trusts implicitly. He might be angry but she has no doubt he'll help if it means saving Iris and doing the right thing. His determination is a pillar of strength she can rely on, rather than the mercurial bent for revenge and excuse to lash out she'd witnessed from Savitar.

There are so many more questions coming thick and fast - different conversations overlapping as the group tries to wrap their head around everything - but Joe's confused comments are the ones that stick out above the din.

“Hold up, hold up! How is this possible? How is any Barry willing to kill Iris?”

It's hard enough for Caitlin to understand herself, with so little information known from her encounter. But she can't forget the look in his eyes as he'd rounded on her with passion, railing against his fate, the expectation that he'd die as designed. For all his talk of fate in how Frost and Savitar were meant to work together, his original fate as a time remnant was the part of his fate he'd been desperate to avoid, and that brought some of his behavior into perspective, even though it seemed so far from the Barry they knew.

“He said there's some kind of time loop. He was convinced it was him or...or Iris. I told him we could help him, that no one has to die.”

“And we trust him?” Joe asks, all his scrutiny suddenly pinned on her. It gives Caitlin a small glimpse of what it must feel like to be interrogated by him.

As much as she wishes she could say they could trust Savitar, they have no reason to other than he was once Barry. Or that he'd let her go. Neither is good enough. But when she'd been captive, she'd seen an opportunity and she'd taken it. It's the best plan they have. The only real plan that's presented itself, other than counting on a scientist to invent a Speedforce prison six years sooner.

“We haven't been able to stop him so far. I think we have to try. What's the alternative?”

The others are still hotly debating it all when Barry flashes in and out of the room, changing into his normal clothes rather than the suit. Iris' attention shifts back to Barry as he stands there, and as Caitlin follows her example, she can see why. Something about him is restless, like he's about to take flight.

“Barr, what are you gonna do?”

“I'm going to have a conversation with myself.”

He's gone just like that, and Caitlin isn't sure whether to be relieved he went alone, or worried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A teaser for chapter 3...**
> 
> _When Savitar finally gets within his sight, Barry’s surprised to see how different he looks. The scars he hadn’t been prepared for, but it’s also the lines around his eyes - however faint they are with how little he seems to age - and the wary, defensive expression on his face. It’s like looking into a mirror at a person he could have been, if his life had gone differently. He’s seen an echo of that look on his face in actual mirrors in his brief darker moments; when his anger got the better of him and he felt like his life was following a path to punish him, one he couldn’t get off of._

**Author's Note:**

> Fic chapters are rebloggable on tumblr [under the tag here](https://purpleyin.tumblr.com/tagged/flash-fic%3A-one-way-or-another).


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